U.S. officials detain Pakistani VOA journalist

New York, August 14, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by U.S. immigration officials' decision to detain without explanation Rahman Bunairee, a Pakistani reporter for Voice of America who said he had been targeted for attack in his home country. CPJ calls on immigration officials to release Bunairee immediately and allow him to resume his work for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster.

Bunairee arrived at Washington's DullesInternationalAirport on Sunday from Karachi, intending to take a position at VOA's Washington headquarters. Bunairee had fled Pakistan
after saying he had been threatened and attacked; notably, he reported a July
8 attack in which Taliban militants blew up his family's home in Buner
District in Pakistan's
restive North WestFrontierProvince. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan
had issued Bunairee a J-1 visa, forvisiting scholars and experts, which would allow him to live and work in
the United States
for a year, according to a VOA press
release posted Friday on its Web site.

Bunairee was detained at the airport by the Department of Homeland
Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division. A
spokeswoman for the agency, Cori Bassett, confirmed that Bunairee was in ICE
custody in an e-mail message to CPJ on Friday. "Mr. Bunairee ... will be afforded
all rights and procedures allowed under our laws," Bassett said, but declined
to comment further citing ICE protocol.

"Rahman Bunairee risked his life and family reporting on
Taliban militants in Pakistan
for a station funded by the U.S.
government," CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney said. "It is imperative that U.S.
authorities explain why he is being held and release him immediately."

VOA first reported
on Bunairee's detention on Friday. "VOA is obviously extremely
concerned," Joan Mower, a spokeswoman for the broadcaster, told The
Washington Post. She declined to comment on specific details of
Bunairee's detention. The broadcaster had also reported on the attack on
Bunairee's home.

Bunairee, who worked for VOA's Pashto-language service in Pakistan, was also the Karachi bureau chief for the privately owned
Khyber TV. He said he felt compelled to leave the country after militants
had tried to abduct him from Khyber's Karachi
bureau, he told CPJ in Pakistan. Bunairee left a wife and four children in Pakistan